Get Latest Version on Checkout Action in VS2003.

Hello, everyone!

This post is for those who uses the VS 2003 for development and, in the same time, uses VSTS 2005 for Source Control. If you are the one of this group, you probably want to get the latest version of your code when you check it out.

To get this goal you need to complete the next set of actions:

1. First, check if you have MSSCCI Provider installed on your computer, otherwise you won't be able to work with VS 2003 and VSTS 2005.
2.  Open VS 2003 and go to Tools ->Options-> Source Control -> SCC Provider -> Advanced .
3.  In Advanced window sign V in "Perform 'Get Latest' on Checkout" and press OK.

DBPro PowerTools Now Available!

Power Tools that extend the functionality of Visual Studio Team Edition for Data Professionals is now available. 

The tool includes:

• Dependency Viewer
• More refactoring support
• Extended Data Generation
• New MSBuild Tasks
• T-SQL Static Code Analysis
• Schema Manager API

Read Gert's post for a more detailed explanation.

Download the tool from here.

Team Foundation Server and SQL Server Collation

One problem, we are having sometimes during Team Foundation Server setup, caused by the fact that TFS has serious limitations on SQL server collation. To be exact, following collation are not supported:

• Accent Insensitive
• Case sensitive
• Binary
• Binary2

In case, we have to install TFS on top of existing SQL Server, there is a good chance, that System Health Check report, prepared by TFS setup, will contain "SQL Server collation is not set to one supported by Team Foundation Server" error. What can we do now? Before we can proceed with the setup, we have to change MS-SQL collation to one of supported by TFS. To change collation after SQL Server installation we have to rebuild master database. The easiest way to do it, is to insert SQL Server installation disk, switch to the CD drive and to run following command from command prompt:

start /wait <CD or DVD Drive>setup.exe /qb INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER REINSTALL=SQL_Engine REBUILDDATABASE=1 SAPWD=<SAPASSWORD> SQLCOLLATION=SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

Following points should be taken in consideration:

• INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER used to specify default instance of SQL Server. Use instance name to alter named instance (usually irrelevant in case of TFS setup)
• Replace <SAPASSWORD> by actual administrator password
• Select one of supported collations. Those that have suffix _CI_AS (Case Insensitive, Accent Sensitive), usually will be fine
• Rebuilding master database reverts all system database to their original state. This means you have to recreate all user databases and reapply all servicepacks that are not included with installation media

Screen cast: Transactions in unit tests & web tests

I posted a new screen cast that explain the usage of transactions in the scope of load testing.

Transactions specifies one or more steps that are grouped together. Steps can be defined as a URL or as a line of code. In the context of a web test, a transaction is one or more URLs and in the context of unit test it is one or more lines of code.

In the context of a load test, you can execute both web tests and unit tests. In the following screen cast I explain the usage of transactions for both. You can view the screen cast here.

Error when trying to export lots of query results to Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Project

Some queries return a lot of results, thousands of results actually. Apparently, it seems there’s a limit of the number of results you can export to Excel or Project directly from the query results in VS:

When you run your query and select all the results from the query tab, you can export to Excel or Project (right click on the selection and choose ‘Open Selection in Microsoft Excel' or ‘Open Selection in Microsoft Project’) only a maximum of 2085 results (rows). Trying to export more than 2085 results will return the following error:

“TF80071: Team Foundation encountered an error while accessing the work item database, Please contact the Team Foundation Server administrator.”

Here’s a nice & simple workaround:

You need to save your query in the “My Queries” folder (Team Explorer -> [your team project] -> Work Items), then right click it and choose ‘Open in Microsoft Excel’ (or choose ‘Open in Microsoft Project’). This way you can export all the results the query returns, without any limitation and without even run it.

First Rosario CTP now available

Jeff Beehler announced yesterday that the first public CTP release of Rosario is now available for download. "Rosario"is the version of Team System that follows Visual Studio Team System 2008.

You can download a white paper from here.

TFS vs Clear Case

Last week one of our customers invited us to brain storm about TFS and ClearCase. This customer has many departments; part of them work with TFS and the others with ClearCase. They want to consolidate the tools and work with only one tool.

After we asked our questions about the development process, we wrote comparison between the 2 tools.

You can read it here.

TIS ClearCase to TFS migration – case study

Very early last year (actually January 2006) we started working with TIS people on migration from ClearCase to TFS. The process was structured from a short period of POC and then implementation within the development team. The case study was finally released on msdn.

We would like to invite you to read it here